Skeptical Musings on Mindfulness

I am pleased to say that I now have something in common with an apologist for Catholicism when it comes to Mindfulness. Susan Brinkman warns Catholics about the dangers of this practice in her book A Catholic Guide to Mindfulness. We have some criticisms in common although part of her objection to this overly touted strategy is that it is too closely linked to Bhuddism. She is concerned that people will abandon prayer and move away from talking to God for the relaxation of the mindful strategies.

Where we do agree is that Mindfulness is oversold and not well researched with valid studies. As we all have likely seen, mindfulness is promoted for stress reduction, depression, anxiety, pain control and likely more. Ms Brinkman cites a metaanalysis from Johns Hopkins University from 2014 that looked at 18,000 studies and found that only 47 (or .0026%) were methodologically sound. Over 99% of the studies to evaluate efficacy were not sound.

Of those 47 studies, “the research found only ‘moderate evidence’ of decreased anxiety, depression and pain and ‘low evidence’ of improved mental health-related quality of life.” She also points out that there is a great deal of money to be made by practitioners.

The poor methodological quality of mindfulness studies mentioned by Ms Brinkman have not gone unnoticed in the field. This past October, a new study was published that set out to evaluate studies over the past 16 years for signs of improved methodological rigour. They found that of the 142 research projects they looked at, there was only a slight improvement in methodology and the studies still appeared to lack scientific validity.

In reporting on this latest study, psychologist James Coyne asks this:

Should we still take claims about mental health benefits of mindfulness with a grain of salt?

Two popular contemporary forms of counselling can each be summed up in a simple piece of advice, and a piece of advice most of us have heard at least once from our parents and grandparents. “Look on the bright side.” (CBT) and “Stop and smell the roses.” (Mindfulness).

They do not speak to mental illness, suffering, disease, or much of reality. But they do address the existential problem of we humans being conscious life forms with an awareness of ourselves as vulnerable bags of mostly water with limited life spans.

We must anticipate danger and threat to survive, but failing a math test is not a terminal diagnosis. We must, as I must now, remember to look first to my right (Australia) before crossing the road. This is a moment when it is not wise to let the roses distract.

We know it is not good to be pessimistic and constantly worried, but there are moments when anxiety and worry are required. We know it is not good to miss the calm, the peace, the beauty of this world and always be distracted by the traffic but I still need to remember to look to my right and then my left before crossing the street.

The popularity of Mindfulness (and Buddhism for that matter) speaks to how hard it is to find that balance, how hard it is to be a sentient being not always terrified, worried, fearful, angry, jealous and preoccupied by the intricacies of life and the certainty of death.

Yesterday at The Rocks in Sydney among the tourists and locals we several times watched a man trudge by dressed in brown monk’s robes, a large hat and boots, wondering what he was up to. Then in a moment when I was distracted he approached my wife and slipped a cheap beaded bracelet on her wrist, and then another on the wrist of our granddaughter, and then said something about money and showed her a book of initials beside a list of sums. The figures were each between 20 and 50 dollars. I muttered “no, no, no” as my wife reached for her purse and came up with five dollars. I told him it was bad karma to con people. I’m not sure if he said, “f***k off” or “father” as he left us. He also gave her a gold (thin plastic) medallion with the words “Work Smoothly” and “Lifetime Peace” printed on it.

We had at least five dollar’s worth of laughter and chatter from this, before falling back to enjoying the warm sun, the pigeons and Rainbow Larakeets, the parade of old and young humans from several continents, the busker at the corner, and the delightful teasing inquisitive grandchild sitting between us. My daughter arrived 20 minutes late having been stuck in Sydney traffic and forced to park four blocks away in an expensive arcade. This put her in a foul mood, which was quickly alleviated by a bit of paternal mindfulness and CBT.

5 thoughts on “Skeptical Musings on Mindfulness”

Mindfullness surely is some kind of time occupier, diversion or something, but my motto is watch out when you are crossing the road. I sometimes find this difficult especially when my husband is determined to cross when the lights are red. A lot of money is made from mindfullnesss and the undertaker also has a good grasp of this.

In Canada in January it is cold, cold, cold! Why, oh why, should one stand shivering at the corner waiting for the lights to turn green? Why, oh why, when your pause can give nefarious monks a chance to slip bracelets on your wrist, not check that there is no traffic moving and no policeman (who in any case has better things to do) watching?